Samuel Errson of the Philadelphia Flyers of the St Louis Blues at the Wells Fargo Center on March 4, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Since their franchise started in 1967, the Philadelphia Flyers have had many players put together great rookie seasons.
Let’s see now…
There was Eric Lindros. … Bill Barber. … Simon Gagne. … Shayne Gostisbehere. … Brian Propp.
The list is long and impressive, and also includes Mikael Renberg, Jeff Carter, Pelle Lindbergh, Brian Boucher and Ron Hextall, among others.
Oddly, despite all the excellent first-year seasons, the Flyers have never had a rookie-of-the-year winner. There was always someone from another team who was deemed better, sometimes controversially. (See the Rangers’ Steve Vickers beating out Barber in 1972-73.)
Which brings us to this season. The Flyers have one of their best rookie crops in recent years, led by goalie Sam Ersson, and wingers Tyson Foerster and Bobby Brink.
None is expected to win the rookie-of-the-year award. Chicago’s Connor Bedard is the heavy favorite.
Still, Ersson, Foerster and Brink have played major roles as the surprising Flyers try to nail down a playoff berth.
“They’ve been great, and they’ve had an impact on our team in a good way,” said veteran center Sean Couturier, 31, who broke into the league as an 18-year-old in 2011 and knows about the pressure of being a rookie. “It’s been nice to see them grow and be a big part of this team. The fact they’ve been around in the organization for a couple of years, I believe, has helped them. Most of them train here in the summer; it shows their dedication to the team and it’s nice to see them have some success.”
Here’s a look at the three rookies and how much they have contributed:
Foerster, Tyson
Tyson Foerster
Drafted in the first round (23rd overall) in 2020, Foerster has displayed a wicked shot and has been effective in board battles. Some of his strength can be attributed to stacking 500 to 1,000 bales of hay a day when he was a teenager. The bales weighed about 50 pounds each.
Foerster, you see, worked on his grandparents’ sheep farm in Ontario, building muscle and, in a roundabout way, helping him get to the NHL.
The 6-2, 215-pound Foerster looks like he belongs, making great strides in his first full season. He was particularly effective as the Flyers made a playoff push in February and March. During one stretch, Foerster had nine goals in nine games.
Heading into the home stretch, Foerster, 22, was tied for second among NHL rookies with 17 goals. Bedard (20 goals) was the only rookie with more goals than Foerster, who was tied with Minnesota’s Marco Rossi and Columbus’ Dmitri Voronkov.
The Ontario native has made terrific progress after starting the season with no goals in his first 15 games.
“Even early on when I wasn’t scoring, I feel like I was getting a lot of chances, a lot of Grade A chances. I feel like I was getting three or four a game,” he said. “I felt from the beginning I belonged here. I felt strong enough, fast enough, and it was just a matter of putting it all together with the guys.”
During his early-season scoring struggles, coach John Tortorella lauded Foerster for his defense and his play away from the puck.
The sturdy right winger said he prides himself on his 200-foot game.
“I felt if I wasn’t scoring, I still had to do something to help the team win,” he said. “Try not to get scored against, and now it’s a matter of doing both.”
Heading into April, the Flyers were trying to earn their first playoff berth in four seasons.
Samuel Errson of the Philadelphia Flyers of the St Louis Blues at the Wells Fargo Center on March 4, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Sam Ersson
In mid-March, Ersson was first among NHL rookies in wins (19), tied for first in shutouts (three), second in goals-against average (2.61), and third in save percentage (.899). He became the Flyers’ No. 1 goalie Jan. 23 after Carter Hart took a leave of absence and was later charged with sexual assault stemming from an alleged 2018 incident. (Hart’s attorney says his client is innocent.)
Since Ersson was anointed the new No. 1, the Flyers haven’t skipped a beat. He has been unflappable, has shown great post-to-post movement, and his athleticism has made him difficult to beat.
The Flyers can thank former general manager Ron Hextall for shrewdly drafting Ersson in the fifth round in 2018.
“If we needed a goalie, we would have taken him earlier,” Hextall said at the time.
The Flyers now have several promising goalies in their system, but those netminders will have to wrestle away the job from the 6-foot-3, 194-pound Ersson. That won’t be easy.
“I feel like I’m still developing,” Ersson said. “I feel like I can perform in this league at a good level. I feel like I’m starting to get more consistent with my play, and this is a great time for me to do it. This is when you want to step forward and show what you’re made of.”
Ersson, 24, said he hasn’t prepared for games any differently since he replaced Hart.
“It’s very much the same for me. I treat it the same. I have the same mentality,” he said. “I’m striving to get better every day, and I think that’s been working for me.”
Ersson and goalie Felix Sandstrom, who replaced Cal Petersen and became Ersson’s backup in late February, are close friends. They used to live in the same apartment complex in Sweden in the offseason.
“He moved into a house and I’m still in an apartment,” Ersson said as the Flyers tried to solidify their playoff spot late in the season. “We still train together in the summers. It’s fun. We push each other. It’s exciting for me that we’re here together and pushing each other.”
Ersson said goalies realize every game isn’t going to be perfect. Having a good friend like Sandstrom on the team helps give him peace of mind.
“You push each other and rely on each other during tough times,” Ersson said.
Bobby Brink
Tortorella has given Brink some tough love this season.
Brink, 22, has been in and out of Tortorella’s doghouse. In fact, the Chaska, Minn., native was benched and didn’t play in his return home Jan. 12 against the host Minnesota Wild. At the time, Brink had 18 points in 36 games, but Tortorella cited the diminutive winger’s inconsistent play.
“Bobby Brink doesn’t have a cemented spot in the National Hockey League,” Tortorella said at the time. “He has a way to go to find that. But that’s to be expected. I think he’s going to be a really good player for us.”
Ten days later, the 5-8, 169-pound Brink was demoted to the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms. It wasn’t a surprise because Brink had been a healthy scratch in four of his previous six games.
Brink, who was a second-round selection (34th overall) in the 2019 draft, performed admirably with the Phantoms and returned to the Flyers. The Flyers recalled him in late February and he scored goals in each of his first two games.
As of this writing, he had 20 points, including nine goals, and a plus-7 rating in 43 games. His defense needed work, but the Flyers were a creative and quicker team with Brink in the lineup. They were also more successful.
The Flyers were 22-14-7 with Brink in the lineup, 12-10-1 without him.
Epilogue
While three Flyers are having commendable rookie seasons, they don’t rank with the best in the franchise’s history.
Which player had the best rookie season for the Flyers?
Lindros probably had the best rookie year among forwards, collecting 41 goals and 75 points in 1992-93. It was a season in which Lindros showcased a combination not usually seen in big men – power and speed.
Despite his stellar season, the “Big E” only finished fourth in the rookie-of-the-year voting that year, behind Teemu Selanne (76 goals, 132 points), Joe Juneau (32 goals, 102 points), and goaltender Felix Potvin (25-15-7, 2.50 GAA, .910 save percentage.)
Hextall had the best season by a Flyers rookie goalie. In 1986-87, he won the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goaltender and the Conn Smythe Trophy as the top player in the playoffs.
He had a 37-21-6 record with a 3.00 GAA (among the NHL elite in those days) and .902 save percentage (best in the NHL among goalies who had played at least five games) in the regular season. But the rookie-of-the-year race was easily won by a legend named Wayne Gretzky, who had 62 goals and 183 points.
Hextall finished tied for ninth (with Mark Messier and Ron Francis) in the voting, and he went on to have an outstanding career before eventually becoming the Flyers’ general manager.
